


Not for Anything in the World

by notcrindy



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, it's a lil zombie au thing, officially a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 03:21:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13449468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcrindy/pseuds/notcrindy
Summary: "We have to hide here so they don't find us.""They'll find us anyhow. We have to keep moving. We have to fight back.""Don't leave me.""Not for anything in the world."(A TAZ zombie AU with Twins in it. officially not a one-shot.)





	1. Prologue

So far, the disease had cropped up in five different towns.

Taako and Lup had no way of knowing, though. They were only twelve when it happened, when Abuelito got bit. They all wanted to deny it was happening; Tia told them not to pay any mind, that the disease wouldn’t strike them because they were safe in the country. He’d had to chase some vagrant off the property, and that’s what did it, the bite, but she said cityfolk were _loco_ anyhow. Abuelito himself paid no mind to it as it festered, and one night, when it got real bad, he called Taako into the bedroom.

“Taako,” Abuelito croaked. It was dark. He’d never been called into Abuelito’s room before.

“What is it, Abuelito?” He was tiny, wide-eyed and innocent. Maybe a little bitter sometimes when Abuelito would lock him up in the barn for getting in trouble, maybe a little different since they’d lost their parents, but there was still so much innocence to be had in those days. He stood in the doorway, playing with his hair as his ears drooped low, not sure what to do.

“Come closer, _culpa mía_ ,” he rasped, and the words hurt, and Taako was afraid.

“I should get Lup,” he said. Abuelito always liked her better.

“ _No,_ ” he rasped, and he was angry, so Taako came closer. “I have something to show you.”

“W-What is it, Abuelito?”

“Stop… …. _ngh…_ ...playing with your hair like a pansy, boy. Get over here and be a man.”

“Yes, Abuelito, I… I’m coming.” He got closer still. “What do you have to show me?”

“Look at _this_ fucking thing. _This_ fucking thing, Taako. Smells sour as your milk, don’t it? Eh?”

He peeled back his sleeve to reveal the bite mark. When Taako saw it last, just before Tia Tilla had shooed him away, it looked like a little bruise. Now it was swelling up with some white pus, oozing in a strange way. He could tell his grandfather felt hot without even touching him. It was bad. Patches of skin were dying.

He wanted to scream because he was a little boy.

He did not scream.

“Listen to me, little one, and listen good,” Abuelito instructed. “You are to protect your aunt and your sister at all costs. Your life is worthless in comparison. Do you understand me?”

“Sí, Abuelito. I--I understand. But you’re not going--”

Abuelito brought him into the room to watch him die.

He did.

Taako yelled for Tia, who was quick to start weeping. Lup came rushing in, too, looking more concerned for Taako than anything else. They both shared a glance, and then…

...Abuelito got up.

He was sick; he was undead. He was rotting and different than before. She was so shocked she didn’t notice and got too close. Got bitten. And she screamed for the children to get away, which they did. They went to Lup’s room (and sometimes Taako’s, if he behaved himself).

But the next day, there was no Abuelito. Lup tried to inquire about it, but Taako stayed quiet, looking at Tia Tilla’s bandaged arm.

“Tia Tilla,” he asked so quiet, “are you okay?”

“No,” Tia Tilla said, solemnly. “I do not think so at all,  _vinimo._ "

He didn’t ask questions.

Lup did, constantly. She was constantly checking on Tia Tilla, seeing how she was doing, and when she became bedridden she would change her sweaty sheets and they would both fix her soup. On one particular day where she couldn’t stand the pain, Taako gripped her before she went in there.

“Be careful.”

“She’s just sick, Taako,” Lup insisted. “She’ll get better.”

He went into the room with her.

It had been hard for him; Abuelito had never liked him, but Tia Tilla had. She was always the one who had defended him, had taught him how to cook, had let him help with cooking. That was why he had remained distant. His love of her made him that way. But it was his love of Lup that made him go into that room.

Because she died, and he knew he couldn’t weep.

She was, awfully, draped over the body and sobbing. He was tugging at her to _get away from there_ and she was _screaming_ at him, how could he be like this, their tia wasn’t some kind of--

“Monster,” they both said simultaneously as she rose.

Lup knew it would be hard to do it. She told him to go out of the room. He didn’t. He held her hand as she brought a large pail down over and over on her head until she stopped. Until she was nothing.

They were too shocked to comprehend what happened.

Taako decided right then he wouldn’t cry.

“We have to hide here,” Taako insisted, “so they don’t find us.”

“They’ll find us anyhow,” said Lup. “We have to keep moving. We have to fight back.”

“Don’t leave me,” Taako begged, still in shock.

“Not for anything in the world,” she promised.

They packed a few essentials and hit the road.


	2. Chapter 1

After that, magic stopped working.

Many different groups called it many different things. Those that lacked any vision or survival instinct for themselves called it the Apocalypse; those that had faith severed abruptly insisted that the gods had abandoned the world. Whatever it was, it was a crock of shit, and it made everyone more vulnerable than they could have ever been before. Whatever it was, it made Lup’s recent hobby of picking up and thumbing through spellbooks useless, and Taako had no real patience for it.

“Those don’t _have_ anything for us, you know,” he insisted, surveying the decrepit library. They were both almost adolescents now, on the cusp of some real and true growth, but not quite grown into themselves. The years had particularly sharpened a lot of Taako’s edges, turning him into something stick thin and cynical, but also honed his instinct to keep thriving no matter what the fuck happened around them. His voice cracked like a young thing, but his mind was so terribly old, already having lived through too many years of too much bullshit.

His sister, on the other hand, grew more toned as the years passed. Largely, Taako was fine with this; it suited Lup to be the one kicking ass for them both, but unfortunately what she had in muscle and fighting skills she lacked in common sense. She was the one who could defend them, true, but she was also the reason they got _into_ so much shit. She was the one always insisting that they try to _help_ people in crisis; she was the one who struggled to watch the victims die. He’d always have to tug her along, and even though scavenging around for cookbooks and reading about recipes from days past kept them both sane, it wasn’t enough for her. She’d recently started becoming so taken with this magic bullshit, and when Lup got something in her head, it was hard to sway her.

Her eyes were more alive than his were. “So? I think they’re interesting,” she retorted, flipping through the pages and looking focused.

Taako scoffed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “ _Interesting._ You just wanna make fire. We can do that with two _sticks,_ stupid.”

“This way’d be more _convenient,_ stupid.” She stuck her tongue out at him with a certain playfulness. “Besides, aren’t you ever the least bit _curious_ about it? Magic?”

“Yeah, I was _real_ curious about it at one point, Lulu,” he said, stepping over a pile that she was making of a bunch of this hocus pocus bullshittery. “But back then I kinna wondered what was up with the Candlenights Candle, too. Get real.”

“Okay, well, that’s not even _remotely_ the same,” she argued, “because magic was _real_ at one point.”

“Yeah, a longass time ago! I don’t see anyone pulling real rabbits out of hats anywhere around here, d’ _you?_ ” He grumbled in a manner more befitting of someone older than him. “You might as well make yourself _useful_ and look for something _practical_ if we’re gonna risk our lives skulking around this dank hellhole.”

“Pfft, oh, _c’mon,_ ” Lup insisted, not even paying any mind to him and pocketing a few books. “It’s not _that_ bad in here.”

“ _Look_ at this place, Lulu,” Taako pointed out, rifling through a book about first aid. “This is a place where knowledge comes to _die._ ” He ruined his cool and casual demeanor when he stumbled across someone’s severed finger near the middle of the book, letting out a tiny yip and allowing it to fall to the floor. “See? I fuckin’ _hate_ libraries.”

“You hate _everything,_ Taako,” Lup sighed, still not even paying attention to his plight.

“Well, in case you haven’t _noticed,_ Lup, there’s a lot to hate. If the world wants me to _love_ it, it should try harder.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she smirked, finally getting up with her backpack and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “But you don’t hate _me._ ”

“‘course I don’t,” he mumbled, rubbing his arm. “You’re the only thing _good_ about all this. Now if you’re through playing World’s Most Lovable Pyro, we better jet. This place gives me the willies.”

She smiled. “You got it, bro. Thanks for coming with me to scrounge around for scraps.”

“Psh. De nada,” he insisted, shrugging his shoulders lazily. They both stepped back over the pile nearly in sync, dashing quick for the exit that Taako already knew was there. He’d been wary of entering in the first place, but nothing had obstructed their path from the window to the shelves, so as far as he knew they were good in here--

He rethought that real quick as a goblin corpse they hadn’t noticed before sprung to life in front of them, moaning as if struck by a terrible sickness. Lup jumped in front of him and ran at it with her umbrella, thwacking its head over and over and over and defending herself from bites by opening it when necessary. He tried to protect her from bites, too, coming around the side so that nothing could get her.

They dealt with it. Taako went right back and grabbed a spellbook about “Evocation” and stuffed it in his bag.

Outside, they took stock. Neither of them had been bitten, and that was good enough. They went back to the caravan they’d been sleeping in, long since abandoned, with a bunkbed in it as luck would have it. They made sure nothing followed them. Didn’t need to turn on a light to attract attention, because they at least could see in the dark.

Collapsing after a long day at the bottom bunk, Taako tossed a spellbook up to her.

“Happy birthday, Lulu,” he said, right before he hit the hay.

“Happy birthday, Taako,” she said, as she climbed down to tuck him in and give him a new cookbook to wake up to.

They survived.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was short but whatever im high and im sick and im trying my best. love you all tho <3333;;

**Author's Note:**

> idk i am sick and on NyQuil and i wrote this w the help of a prompt generator so here you go y'all. sorry if my Spanish is bad??? ): or my elvish.


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